Leap of Faith
by Xeen Cyr
Summary: fillers for Ability. I wanted to go back to the final "light scene" and have my take. As Olivia said: "I didn't do it"… I kinda agree on that one ; chapter 2 is up.
1. Leap of Faith

**Leap of Faith**

_No in FRiNGEment intended. _

Note: filler for Ability. I wanted to go back to the "light scene" and have my take on that one. As Olivia said: "I didn't do it"…

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

_I have faith in you._

How could he? She was a fraud. She should have known that Jones was not the type to be cheated upon. It was not a world of make believe either, not when so many lives were at stake. But why? Olivia was a cop. She wanted to know the whens, the whys, and she knew in her guts that Jones was not a terrorist.

And now she was going to die a painful death to prove his point, suffocate in this empty building, facing the Boston skyline. She'll hear the blast when the windows blow but she won't hear much more after that. The toxin works fast. Her ears will be shut long before she stops yelling.

It was a good day to die, except that she always thought that she'd go with a bullet, or defusing a bomb of a very different kind, or in a car accident, like John did.

She never thought she'd die alone. It's a rare thing in the life of a FBI agent when you're actually on your own, there's always your partner, or a squad of agents following tracks. The dying alone part, that was the worse case scenario.

She was ready though. There was nothing she could do, in spite of all the promises made by all the maniacs of this earth, in spite of her determination to fight evil. She was not one of the warriors of their new army. She had no special value. She was an expendable asset.

How did they put it already? Recruit? She was only hoping that Peter would find a way to stop this insanity before it's too late.

Peter…

_I'm not doing this with you, Olivia._

And he was right. He was better off. In the aftermath, a lot would need to be done. And he could continue to decipher the riddle that was his father and probably much more. With two geniuses up its sleeve, the Fringe Division should be able to face the future and Peter was the only one who can "speak" Walter and deflect his quirks with a smile.

Her face twitched. _I'll miss him._ That was stupid. She won't miss a thing. She'll be dead.

She took a deep breath and focused on the lights. But she could not focus, not on the lights, not on anything. Her thoughts were all over the place, her mind –regardless of the urgency, racing to reasonable solutions even when she knew that logic was not the answer, that logic simply didn't apply.

She would have liked to have Charlie by her side.

There was no way that Charlie could succeed either in his impossible task of deporting so many people on such short notice. As much as she would have wanted to, this was not a science fiction show; there would be no commercial break, no teleporting device, no containment field, and no space ship sponsoring the program that could ultimately save them all.

She was going to die alone with hundreds by her side. She'll be the first to go, the first of a very different army. An army of people with no face, reaped away from their lives in a matter of minutes. They won't even see it coming --in every way. She felt no guilt though. Jones had planned this from the very beginning. There was no way out. She was only a pawn and he's been playing her ever since he escaped from prison. And probably way before.

She frowned and tried to get her attention back to the lights, but all she could see was the blue digits and the decreasing numbers on the timer. She swayed slightly, moving her weight from one foot to the other, attempting to find an inner balance, barely able to breathe. Her reflection in the window blurred and she felt dizzy, on the verge of losing consciousness. Fighting away the vagal episode, she kept staring at the board.

00:00:37

From the corner of her eye, she spotted Peter. Why on hell would he come back? She fought the urge to run to him and to wait for their deaths in his arms. He was walking slowly back to her, and the lights flickered. Was it only in her mind? The timer stopped and she experienced a tingly feeling in her neck, in her back, in her hands. The sounds were muffled and Peter was totally still, stopped in motion, one foot up in midair.

She heard a bell and children's laughs. _Simon said_… She blinked when a blue light brought her back to reality and to the bomb, and to the ticking timer.

00:00:23

All of a sudden, Peter started to walk again, and the digits started to change again, and the numbers to decrease again but with it, the lights were clicking off, and too bad if it was too late Mr Jones because she was doing it, and it was working, and…

00:00:02

The timer halted and there was a humming sound when the bomb was deactivated. Her lungs were hurting. Panting, she started to breathe again. She put her hands to her face. She could not find in her the liberating tears that would fight her lingering panic.

"You did it. What was that? How did you do that?"

She had her back on Peter, but she could hear his trouble echoing hers.

"I don't know…" she said, turning around, "I don't know."

He made a step forward and she folded her arms on her chest. He stopped. His hand that was reaching out to her fell limply to his side and he frowned.

"You okay? You're shaking."

She smiled when she heard the familiar question.

"Yes, I'm pretty shaken, I guess. Remind me to keep an open mind next time," she quipped.

"Next time? Are you kidding?"

"There will be a next time Peter, we both know it."

"Will do," he replied softly.

"I have to call Charlie."

She turned her back to him again. She could not face Peter. She needed to be alone, to mull over what had just happened. But Peter was in shock and didn't try to speak or do anything. She gave a quick glance in his direction. He had not moved away from the window, his eyes locked on the light board a deep crease in the middle of his forehead.

She called Broyles, she called Charlie. And only then, she sat down in the dim light of the 47th floor, and waited for the FBI to flood back into the room and take care of the deadly device with Peter by her side.

_I wouldn't have died alone._

She shrugged away her fears and the thousand burning questions she had to ask Jones. She would not have died alone. She took a gulp of water and stared at Peter, seated by her side. He came back.

-o-

_Apart from the obvious __heavy corny subtext, what do you think?_

_If you wonder, I do think that she didn't stop the lights alone ;)_


	2. Free Will

**Free Will**

_No in__FRiNGEment intended. _

_Note: spoilers for "AbilitY". Another take on the _light scene_. Peter POV. I wrote the same scene already from Olivia POV but I do not intend this one as a continuation. _

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The sound of his own voice kept echoing in his head, again and again. Furrowing his brow even more than his usual, he dashed to the lifts, his mind racing. One minute left and counting.

_I'm not doing this with you Olivia._

No way. He won't do it, stay with her and watch her fail.

Once she gave him no alternative. He left Iraq, did his best to reconcile with his estranged father, accepted to investigate that insane string of improbable events with her, and now he would have to stay and watch her die? And die in the process? No way, no f… way.

_That cannot be happening_.

He punched the push-button several times, gritting his teeth. He looked up to check the diodes on the panel above the lift doors. And waited. Lifts are so awfully slow when you're on the clock, he smirked. Leaving was the one thing that made sense. He had to leave the building. They ought to leave the building for Christ's sake, all of them!

But what then? They could not possibly escape before it's too late. The toxin will be released in the atmosphere and every breathing being would be sealed to death in a matter of seconds. He clenched his fists and gnashed his teeth in anger. He punched the button again.

_You're out of your mind_.

And he was too, when he thought he could leave her alone when she was doing her best to go through Jones' demented loops.

That's what her kind do, he scolded, sacrifice themselves for the sake of the country, in the name of duty --or because you don't leave anyone behind or that kind of crap. That world was simply alien to him.

But what kind of friend was he to turn his back on her when she needed him the most? He couldn't just turn tail and run, but he could not help her either. _Sometimes turning tail is the only sensible thing to do_, said the little voice in his head.

"_Shut up_", he snarled, giving a last look to the LEDs above his head. The lift was stuck on the ground floor anyway. He sprinted back silently to the ticking bomb and only slowed down when he turned the last curve.

She had not moved a bit. Her hands spread out on her thighs, her breath slow and even, her attention focused on the lights, the lights that were still on. He noticed that her shoulders dropped slightly when she understood that he was back. He resisted the urge to rush to her side and take her in his arms and deafen her with clichés, and simply stood there, a good ten feet away from her.

Then her body language changed in a subtle way and the lights started to tick off, one at a time. He hold his breath, mesmerized by the bulbs switching off with a soft click and forgot Olivia and Jones and the Pattern and all the grotesque Sonics of this world to concentrate on the lights.

The grid went dark.

They let out a sigh in unison.

He shoved his clammy hands inside his pockets. "You did it!" he exclaimed. "What was that? How did you do that?" He was not even looking at her, his heart was pounding in his chest, he was out of breath and they were alive. That was over, at least, this round was.

She turned around, her hair basking in the glow of a blue halo. "I don't know," she said.

He knew that it was a question but he had no answer. Not yet.

-o-

_You guys care to comment?_


End file.
